NeuroLeadership Application of Science Award – 2016

The NeuroLeadership Application of Science Award (NASA) recognizes scientists who conduct innovative, thorough, and insightful research that contributes to bridging the gap between science and application.

The goal of this award is to

1) Urge scientists to consider the application of their work for business and leadership

2) Create opportunities for scientists to engage with the business community

We asked applicants to compose a 250-word summary describing a finding from a recent paper or series of papers (in press acceptable) on which they were an author, outlining the principles on which someone can act. We have a special interest in the areas of making decisions and solving problems, regulating emotions or regulating the self, collaborating, and facilitating change in others or in whole organizations. Applicants considered how their research could apply to one or more of these areas.

The award is accompanied with a $3000 prize to be used at the winner’s discretion. The winner will also be invited to present their work to members of the NeuroLeadership Institute, on a globally available webinar or a conference.

Congratulations to Our 2016 NASA Winner

Brent Hughes, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Fellow in Psychology at Stanford University

Dr. Hughes’ research uses a game-theoretic approach to address the neural bases of inclusive decision-making. His findings show that alleviating time pressure can decrease intuitive outgroup distrust and increase inclusive and prosocial behavior.

Abstract: Hughes

Global communication and trade require individuals to work with members of diverse groups, but this modern demand clashes with our longstanding parochial biases. Over time, these biases cascade to cause harmful consequences that limit our ability to form intergroup coalitions. This is problematic, because diversity and inclusion are key drivers of innovation and economic growth. For example, McKinsey finds that companies in the top quartile for diversity are more likely to outperform their competition. Paradoxically, companies still fail to operate in ways that promote diversity. Even progressive tech firms like Google employ a workforce with less than 35% women and less than 10% Black and Latino employees.

What can we do to promote inclusion? One avenue is to encourage “cool” or “deliberative” thinking styles during intergroup interactions. My colleagues and I used a game-theoretic approach to examine factors that promote intergroup cooperation during a financial exchange. We found that trusting ingroup members produced activity in brain structures associated with reward (e.g., striatum), whereas trusting outgroup members produced activity in areas associated with effortful thinking (e.g., dACC). And encouraging people to think more carefully about their decisions increased cooperation with outgroup members!

Together, these findings demonstrate that people intuitively value and trust ingroup members, but require control to regulate knee-jerk distrust of outgroup members. These findings suggest that deliberating about shared goals during intergroup interactions might increase outgroup trust even without changing individuals’ affective experiences. Over time, these repeated reinforcing interactions may change affective experience and promote a culture of inclusion.

We look forward to having Dr. Hughes and the Runners-Up present their findings to NeuroLeadership Institute faculty and members.

Runners-Up

Shabnam Hakimi, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher in Social Neuroscience at University of Colorado Boulder

Dr. Hakimi’s research links long-term goal attainment to the ability to vividly visualize a future reward.

Abstract: Hakimi

Choices between smaller rewards sooner and larger rewards later are all too common. While it can sometimes be difficult to wait, there are often benefits to patience. Interestingly, individuals vary widely in the rate at which they discount the value of future outcomes, and many choose the smaller, sooner option even when the choice isn’t aligned with their goals. What underlies the decision to enjoy an expensive latte now instead of saving that cash for retirement? Would imagining the benefits of a well­-funded retirement help shift the decision away from instant gratification? We were interested in understanding how an individual’s ability to imagine rewards impacts the extent to which she discounts the future. Using functional neuroimaging, we measured the brain response associated with imagining an immediate reward. Separately, we estimated each individual’s discount rate (i.e., patience) over a series of financial decisions where she chose between a smaller dollar amount now and a larger one in the future. We found that brain activity in prefrontal cortex during reward imagination was positively correlated with patience during monetary choice, and that this response predicted individual discount rate with high accuracy. Understanding how individuals engage their imaginations in decision making may have applications for both consumers and firms, providing opportunities for intervention when choosing to wait may be beneficial. Encouraging individuals to immerse themselves in the vivid possibility of a future option may help to better align behavior with stated goals ­­ or at least put that extra dollar into a retirement account.

Candace Raio, Ph.D.Postdoctoral Researcher in Psychology at New York University

Dr. Raio explores how to build resilience to stress, which is shown to improve both emotion regulation and decision-making.

Abstract: Raio

The capacity to appropriately regulate emotional responses is a fundamental part of adaptive behavior. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying emotional and behavioral control are compromised under stress. This suggests an important, but unexplored, paradox: in the stressful situations in which we might benefit most from emotion regulation, the mechanisms required to support such processes may be functionally impaired. My research aims to advance a mechanistic understanding of how stress exposure changes emotion regulation, and how these changes inform the decisions we make. In a recent series of papers, I found that inducing stress in healthy individuals led to marked impairments in three critical techniques used to regulate emotional responses to threat: cognitive emotion regulation (using various mental strategies to modify an emotional response); extinction learning (learning a threatening stimulus no longer signals danger); and reversal learning (flexibly shifting emotional responses to a new stimulus).

Importantly, these results are the first to identify a causal role of stress in disrupting successful emotion regulation strategies in humans as measured by subjective report, neurophysiological arousal and neuroendocrine responses. This work highlights the susceptibility of emotion regulation to stress exposure and suggest that reducing stress in one’s environment, or bolstering resilience against stress reactivity, is a critical first step to facilitating emotion regulation. Since our emotional responses drive the decisions we make, my current work aims to characterize the effects of stress on financial and social decision-making, in an effort to help us understand how to improve adaptive decision-making in the face of stress.

Jay Van Bavel, Ph.D.Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at New York University

Dr. Van Bavel’s research illuminates the power of group identity to reduce bias and promote self-sacrifice, cooperation, empathy, and efficient problem-solving.

Abstract: Van Bavel

What motivates people to sacrifice their own self-interest in favor of organizational success? It turns that forging strong group identities provides an important answer to this problem. My research uses methods from the cognitive sciences, psychology, and neuroscience to understand how people come to identify with groups. We have found that the simple act of assigning people to a team, such as the blue team or the red team, can swiftly and effortlessly alter their brain function and behavior in a way that favors their own group. Once they are on a team, people express more positive attitudes towards in-group members, attend more carefully to in-group members, and have enhanced face processing and memory for individuals who are part of their team. Creating a common sense of group identity can also have benefits for people who are working in diverse groups. For instance, we found that merely placing people on a mixed-race team can reduce subtle forms of racial bias. More recently, we have been examining the psychological motivations and neural systems that underlie the decision to sacrifice their own money when it can benefit other members of their group. It turns out that this form of self-sacrifice is particularly important because it inspires others to cooperation with their group or organization. Our research suggests that harnessing group identities has the potential to overcome biases in hiring and retention, enhance our empathy towards others, improve collaboration within groups, solve problems more efficiently, and facilitate change across organizations.

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